Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many deaths in prisons were caused by attacks by other prisoners in each of the last five years.

Every death in custody is a tragedy and we are committed to reducing the number of deaths in prisons.

Summary statistics on deaths in prison custody by apparent cause are published quarterly, and the latest annual figures, for the ten years to September 2015, can be found in Table 2 of the Safety in Custody statistics bulletin available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/472712/Safety-in-custody-summary-q2-2015.xls

This includes the number of deaths in the category of homicide, defined as any death of a prisoner at the hands of another.